Poll: Gingrich leads in South Carolina

ATLANTA - Newt Gingrich has taken a commanding lead in the South Carolina Republican primary, with more than twice the support of Mitt Romney or Herman Cain, according to a poll conducted Monday evening for the Augusta Chronicle.

Gingrich, a former congressman from neighboring Georgia, has 38 percent to 15 for Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts. Cain, a Georgia native who retired from the national restaurant business to become a talk-radio host in Atlanta, had 13 percent.

No other candidate reached double digits in the telephone survey conducted Monday night among 519 registered voters who say they’re likely to vote in the state’s GOP primary. InsiderAdvantage/Majority Opinion Research conducted the poll, and it has a 4 percent margin of error.

“Gingrich has consolidated a substantial lead among those who consider themselves ‘Republicans,’ which are the more long-time GOP voters,” said InsiderAdvantage CEO Matt Towery. “The independents who had supported Cain are moving to Gingrich as well.”

The pattern is repeating itself in additional early-voting states, as illustrated in other polls Towery’s organization conducted the same night for different news outfits. In Iowa, Gingrich leads with 28 percent, followed by Texas Congressman Ron Paul’s 13 and Romney’s 12. Paul only has 7 points in South Carolina.

In New Hampshire, a state Romney has a vacation home and where some of the Massachusetts media reaches, Gingrich has 27 points to Romney’s 31, putting them in a tie once the 4-percent margin of error is considered.

Pollsters like Towery, political activists and journalists have all seen the trend since campaigning began for next year’s GOP nomination. Conservatives in the party have dallied with nearly every other candidate in the race as an alternative to Romney. Before Gingrich’s rise in the polls over recent weeks, they leaned toward Cain, who led in South Carolina in October and mid-November, according to surveys for the Augusta Chronicle. Romney held 16 percent in both months, essentially the same support he has now.

However, Cain has been stung by accusations of sexual harassment, which he denies, and a series of gaffs in media interviews about foreign affairs. In South Carolina, he was leading Oct. 16 with 32 percent before seeing his lead shrink to 26 percent Nov. 11.

As Cain has dropped in the polls, Gingrich has risen. He moved from 8 percent in October to 19 by Nov. 11.

Gingrich, who resigned as speaker of the House of Representatives in 1998, has felt his own share of criticism then and since. During the early days of this year’s campaign, most of his staff quit over tactical differences, and he has been hounded by news reports of a six-figure charge account at a New York City jewelry store and a $300,000 consulting contract with Freddie Mac during the height of the housing bubble.

But most observers predicted he would never gain traction with conservatives because of his three marriages, including reports that he was carrying on an affair with his current wife while still married to his second.

The freshness of the revelations about Cain have trumped those about Gingrich, according to Towery.

“Cain’s more recent issues have helped Gingrich in the sense that Gingrich’s so-called baggage is in the past,” he said.

Here’s the standing in the latest poll of South Carolina’s Republican primary, according to a survey by InsiderAdvantage/Majority Opinion Research for the Augusta Chronicle.

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